A few weeks ago, I had the fun of interviewing a literary lion in Washington DC—and I received a gift that went far beyond the signed copy of a book.
Sir Alexander McCall Smith was touring the United States in support of one of his newest novels, The Great Hippopotamus Hotel, and organizers at the Hill Center, a Capitol Hill landmark building, invited me to ask him about a quarter century of writing all kinds of books.
I’ve mentioned McCall Smith’s newest novels in plural. In 2024, he’s released three other books: The Perfect Passion Company, a comic novel about matchmaking set in Edinburgh; The Conditions of Unconditional Love, the fifteenth book about philosopher Isabel Dalhousie; and The Stellar Debut of Galactica MacFee, another epistle in the Scotland Street social satire series.
The lecture room at the Hill Center was packed with almost 100 rapt fans who’d all properly reserved seats ahead of time, with some waitlist members crowding the edges while standing on foot. Everyone was all smiles. Sir Alexander is a true Scottish gentleman and an excellent joker. He’s not one to toot his own horn, but he did come forward and answer my questions about his work, including the fact he doesn’t know the total number of books he’s written: just that it’s over one hundred, and that he averages the publication of three or four books every year.
Writers who have joyful careers running at high productive speed are often asked for advice about how they manage. Alexander McCall Smith shared that he doesn’t have to revise much because his brain delivers sentences to him in a stream-of-consciousness fashion—they come to him just as they appear in print to us months later. He described being in a mild dissociative state when he works, writing about 1000 words (or four pages) per hour.
People’s eyes widened when he described beginning his workday very early—sometimes as early as three in the morning, which he described as a melancholic time also known as “the hour of the wolf.” Instead of lying in bed feeling frustrated at having the interrupted sleep, he gets up to write. And generally, he is done with all of the day’s writing before lunchtime.
I’ve been an early riser for a long time—but my habit has been to go through a lengthy morning routine before starting to write. This looks like coffee, journaling, dog feeding and walking, tidying some rooms and putting in a load of laundry, and cooking a real breakfast. Oh, and perhaps a glance at the papers and five minutes watching Stephen Colbert reruns online with my husband. You can quickly see that writing gets shifted to the end and sometimes I’m lucky to have an hour and a half for writing before heading out to lunch or an 11:30 gym class.
That was BEFORE talking with Alexander McCall Smith. In the last few weeks I’ve risen when I wake, usually between four and six am. I have the first half of my coffee in front of the fire, and then I take the cup upstairs to my study and turn on the laptop. I work for a solid hour before thinking of breakfast and anything else. And I must say: I’m writing faster and better, and I still have the interest to write more in the morning, even after breakfast and the dog walk. If I wake way too early—say 3:30 a.m.—I will find myself rising if I can’t return to sleep within 30 minutes. And I read or write then for an hour, and I go back to sleep. My brain is fine with this routine, as long as I give it space for a cozy afternoon nap (early afternoon, so as not to screw up falling asleep later).
I’m also reading a productivity book called Hyper-Efficent by a researcher named Mithu Storoni. Dr. Storoni has pulled together many research studies on brain performance to develop her original framework of three gears for the brain, ranging from highly focused to scattered, and also a flexible stage in which one can flip from different focus areas. You can’t change the gear your brain is in at the moment; but you can recognize what’s going on internally by planning tasks and relaxation around your own clock.
In gear theory, early morning is the time the brain can most easily sink into a creative well. For most of us, though, this prime time is spent eating, helping others start their day, and traveling to work. As the day goes on, our brains will always become fatigued—it’s not a personal fault. Yet our brains can regain focus and happy strength following 15-minute breaks with different kinds of activities. For instance, writers who’s had their eyes locked on a screen would probably recharge best by taking a short walk that brings their eyes to rest on trees and sky and nature. Someone working with very difficult information or tense, unpleasant personal interactions (say at a hospital or a tollbooth) might recover their emotional reserve taking Instagram break scrolling cute animal videos.
I was flat-out thrilled to have it confirmed that the most successful way to initiate intellectual activity later in the day is following a nap. Storoni found that late afternoon is the second most efficient period in the day for most brains. Because my day started at four today, and included a midmorning water aerobics session, I’d worried that I might lack the energy the to write this blogpost later in the day. However, after lunch I napped for an hour, and got up to have a cup of green tea and started writing without any kind of hesitation.
I’ve been blogging for Murder is Everywhere on alternate Wednesdays for ten years. There are days I’ve regretfully missed posting because of writing deadlines and my inability to shift to a second project on the same day. I'm also very different from Alexander McCall-Smith in that I haven't got multiple publishers expecting me to write various novels and short stories in the same calendar year. I am satisfied researching, writing and revising a book every eighteen months (although the publishing cycle sometimes draws the book’s release a bit longer).
My chance encounter with a veteran novelist, and the coincidences in his working style with brain's Circadian rhythms, have been illuminating. Now I’ve got a plan of how to make use of my chronic insomnia, and I can accept that I can’t force my brain to run when it wants to rest. Taken together, all of it goes a long way to make writing more enjoyable.
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